This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life is an essay by David Foster Wallace. The text originates from a commencement speech given by Wallace at Kenyon College on May 21, 2005. Time magazine has ranked This Is Water among the best commencement speeches ever delivered.

Assignments:

1. One of the younger fish asks, What the hell is water? What does this question have to do with Wallace's thoughts on most of adults' lives?
2. What does Wallace want to teach the young students?
3. Why do you think are many people so single minded and intolerant to new ideas?
4. Do you think from your own experience that German people think and act similarly to Americans?
5. Do you like Wallace's speech?